Q&A: Platonism
Platonism
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Thank you very much for the enlightening lectures. I just listened to the series on Platonism, and I have a few questions.
You pointed out that even in the Platonic approach there is a difference between objects and properties. But what exactly is the definition?
In particular, I don't understand what prevents me from treating an arbitrary collection of properties (like in Borges's example) as an entity in Platonic semantics whenever that helps me resolve some difficulty. Is that only a result of our human intuitions? If so, that's pretty slippery. It could very well be that at some stage classifying countries according to the amount of peach exports they have will be very useful, and then would we conclude that such an idea exists?
In addition, regarding the second part of the series, where you explained issues in Jewish law by means of Platonism: in all those cases, why do we need Plato? All you explained there is that Jewish law relates to metaphysical entities; nothing was said about an idea that includes all the instances of those entities together. What would prevent Aristotle from accepting the reality of the legal status of a married woman, or bare ownership over a slave, but not in the sense of the 'idea of the legal status'—rather as individual instances of a metaphysical entity?
Thank you very much in advance!
Answer
I don't understand the question. If you treat a collection of properties as an object, then you are not a Platonist. Nothing prevents you from not being a Platonist; the question is whether you are one or not.
The existence of metaphysical entities is a Platonic matter. Even if you are referring to a particular status that applies to a particular object. As long as you do not see it as a property but as an object—you are a Platonist.
Discussion on Answer
Other people's recognition is an indication. But there is no mathematical rule for this. Sometimes I would say that the others simply do not perceive it correctly.
God is not a property of something. Seeing properties, like red, democratic, triangular, and the like, as the realization of an abstract entity—that is Platonism.
Thank you.
As for the second part—that's exactly the question. What exactly requires us to arrive at the explanation of an abstract entity? For example, regarding the "status of a married woman." Where is the need to say that there is an abstract entity of the law of a married woman that exists in the woman? Or regarding a slave—why do I need to say that ownership is an abstract entity and not simply an additional law that applies to the slave?
What forces us to claim that there really is a wall in front of us and not just a hallucination or imagination? Because we see it. We also see the status, with the eye of the intellect. I am not looking for explanations; I see.
By the way, the ones who claimed this were the Talmud and the commentators, not me. I brought proofs for it from contradictory statuses and from ownership without rights, and the like.
Are you trying to make fun of me?
The wall I see; the Platonic entities I still don't see (not even with the eye of the intellect), if the topics can be explained with almost identical distinctions, just without using Platonism.
My definition of an object is not a collection of properties, but I assume the existence of an idea for things that present themselves to me as collections of properties (the properties that I identify as common to all horses I interpret as an indication of the existence of the idea of horseness). That is, when in real life I identify something as an object, I assume that an idea exists. That's easy for things like a horse, but when you come to define an idea of abstract things like democracy, I'm asking where the boundary is. If only one person relates to something as an object, while to everyone else it looks like an unrelated collection of properties—does that too have an idea?
As for the second part—why on earth is the existence of metaphysical entities a Platonic matter? So why did you bother showing that Jewish law is Platonic through all those topics? Jewish law is based on the fact that there is God, a metaphysical entity, and is therefore necessarily Platonic.